


Vivum Arma

by Suomalainen_Pasifist



Category: Super Science Friends (Cartoon)
Genre: Affection, Ambiguous/Open Ending, Angst, Fix-It, Gen, Headcanon, Historical Figures, Historical Inaccuracy, Missing Scene, Original Character Death(s), Out of Character, Pre-Canon, Superpowers, Temporary Character Death
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-08
Updated: 2020-10-08
Packaged: 2021-03-08 05:00:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,601
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26900086
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Suomalainen_Pasifist/pseuds/Suomalainen_Pasifist
Summary: In Colorado, on the 4th of July 1898, Nikola Tesla was visited by a mysterious stranger with a disturbing message. The clouds are coming closer, and the wind of time is howling more fiercely. Choose who will die when the thunder strikes. Choose, man-weapon, that you never wanted to be.
Kudos: 5





	Vivum Arma

**Author's Note:**

> This is an English translation of my fic "Vivum arma", posted here: https://ficbook.net/readfic/6928175  
> If you find any mistakes in the text, please let me know. I'm not a native speaker, but I want to improve my translation skills.
> 
> This fic is more like AU, based on my head canons, more realistic and dark. This is a reflection on the theme "What if the events of the cartoon took place in real life without genre conventions?"
> 
> I was not mistaken with the year of Tesla's visit to Colorado, it is an assumption that his experiments could have started a year earlier. The character's eyes are green, not blue — it just so happens that in all my SSF art Nick has green eyes, starting from the first sketch.
> 
> Special thanks to Дракон Арина and Din0za, my beta-readers!

_Пусть не настал ещё черёд,_ _  
повсюду ненависти ворох.  
Кто не забился в щель, тот ждёт, —   
Фитиль зажжён, и вспыхнет порох,   
глаза горят, глаза горят,   
и грозен тишины заряд._   
  
F. Halas.   
  
  
  


«ONE OF THE GREATEST INVENTORS IN MANKIND HISTORY HAD BEEN KILLED   
  
Nikola Tesla, Master of lightning and Wizard of electricity, was found dead in his hotel room in Alta Vista hotel, Colorado-Springs, yesterday at 1:00 p.m. According to the _Evening Telegraph_ correspondent, the scientist was killed by three shots in the back from an unknown weapon. Circumstances of Tesla’s death remain unsolved. The FBI and Washington police have been joined the investigation…»   
  
«WHO WILL ANSWER FOR A DASTARDLY MURDER?»   
  
«WHY DID THE POLICE AND THE FBI STOP INVESTIGATING?»   
  
«FOR WHAT MASTER OF LIGHTNING WAS KILLED? SOLVING A SHOCKING CRIME ON PAGE 3!»

  
_“Did all of this happen to me?”_   
  


***

  
Thunder. Tesla had been hearing it since lunch. Wherever the inventor was, he could catch the echoes of a distant thunderstorm. A quiet grumbling, a crackling of an atmospheric electricity, barely discernible in the sighs of wind and the rustle of grass, but too familiar to be confused with anything else. Amazing sound! It sent a shiver through the scientist’s body, and every time he touched something, purple sparks flickered under his fingers.   
  
Neither Kolman Czito nor Tesla’s other assistant heard the approaching thunder, but both trusted the scientist’s keen hearing and his natural gift for listening to lightning, so no one was surprised when the weather turned sour in the evening and the sky was quickly covered with gloomy clouds.   
  
The whole day was spent in a rush and confusion — it was necessary to debug the equipment in the lab and restore order after yesterday’s experiment. Nikola personally monitored the progress of the work, but the closer the storm approached the town from the South, the more shivering and agitation he became. When he closed his eyes, he could sense the electricity coursing through his nerves, the discharges hitting the walls of his skull, the faint pulses of current causing his heart to contract, pumping blood. Too many feelings… It seems that you could go mad from them.   
  
Czito squinted at the inventor, shaking his head. Tesla had been in his feet since morning, lively and energetic, but when no one seemed to be looking at him, his gaze became strained, like a string stretched to the limit. The scientist’s thoughts was far away from the lab and Colorado Springs. Something occupied his mind, but the old man could not understand what it was. Finally, he couldn’t stand it. When Nikola checked the secondary winding of the transformer he had designed for the hundredth time, Czito suggested the scientist take a break for ten minutes and go for a walk.   
  
“I think that’s enough for today," Tesla looked around the lab with an approving smile. The mess was much less, than it had been in the morning. “Get ready, I won’t be long.”  
  
The inventor leaned against the doorjamb and waited, watching Lowenstein’s preparations, then he gave Czito a curt nod and went out with him to the wind-swept plateau.   
  
Gray-blue clouds obscured the setting sun, and the long shadows of the Rocky Mountains were almost lost in the gathering dusk. A stifling wind ran through the hard, heat-desiccated grasses. The air smelled of rain. Ahead of them, as far as the eye could see, was a flat, turf-covered plain, with islands of heather growing on it. Сutted by winds and streams, rocks and cliffs rose far away on the horizon. They seemed a mirage, a Fata Morgana, and on hot days, they melted in the heat haze like lighted candles.   
  
Both men walked through the hard green and were silent, each thinking of his own. Tesla gazed at the tattered clouds, Czito — at the ground. One was smiling thoughtfully, anticipating interesting observations; the other was watching him sideways, scratching his close-cropped beard. Finally, when only the lone purple-flowered bushes could hear their conversation, the old man said:   
  
“Mr. Tesla, are you alright? You look exhausted.”  
“I’m fine," Nikola answered absentmindedly.   
  
Czito frowned and grumbled:   
  
“If I didn’t know you, I’d think you were lying to me. Tell me, how many hours did you sleep today?”  
“I didn’t sleep last night. Couldn’t sleep.”  
“You need to have a rest.”  
  
Tesla stopped. The wind ruffled the purple bells of the heather and carried the faint rumble of distant storm.   
  
“Don’t worry," he said, looking his interlocutor in the eye. “I’m grateful for your concern for my health, but it is enough that I’m talking to you now. Even if I went to Alta Vista, I couldn’t focus on anything else. My thoughts would constantly go back to what we saw yesterday. I didn’t feel tired last night, and I don’t feel tired now.”  
  
The old man looked doubtfully at the scientist and waved his hand, not wanting to argue.   
  
“As you wish," he said.   
  
They moved forward again on the plateau. It was getting darker because of the clouds. The wind was growing stronger, and far behind them the planks of the laboratory granary creaked under its gusts.   
  
“I never thought that was possible," Nikola spoke softly, breaking the silence. “It’s no joke to use the Earth as an energy transmitter. Before I came here, I was sure that this was an impossible task. If only stationary waves could be reined in by constructing a suitable receiver, or creating them artificially using resonance phenomena!”  
“We haven’t yet fully understood the nature of these strange indications. The recording device may be malfunctioning.”  
  
The scientist shook his head categorically.   
  
“I checked everything today, there were no failures and couldn’t be. All the devices were set up perfectly. I’m sure it was stationary waves, nothing else could have affected the Earth’s potential so much away from the storm.”   
  
Czito scratched his beard pensively.   
  
“We need to retry the experiment," he said at last, turning up the collar of his jacket to protect himself from the cold breath of the wind. “But no one has done anything like this before, and we do not have the necessary machinery for such purposes.”  
“If we don’t have such equipment, we need to create it! I have already thought about this question, and in my mind there is an approximate model of the magnifying transmitter. And one more thing… I may need your help in the experiment.”   
  
“I’ll do my best, Mr. Tesla, you can count on me.”   
  
Nikola nodded, his eyes lighting up with the feverish fire they always did when thinking of an idea. He stared up at the clouds that swirled overhead and glittered with the first silent discharges with a sincere, childish delight. Yes, at such moments he was most like a child, despite his impressive height and the burning, piercing eyes that so frightened those who did not know him, and inspired those who knew him too well.   
  
“The use of stationary waves has an amazing potential. If the data from the second experiment is satisfactory, it will be possible to transmit and receive energy anywhere on the planet without wires.”   
“And if it doesn’t?”  
“Even if this happens, we will learn more about stationary waves and the properties of the Earth as a condenser. However, it seems to me that we are on the right track. I do not know how to explain this feeling, but I sense that I should continue to work in this direction.”   
“The foresight?” Czito grinned into his moustache. “I didn’t think you believed in divination, esotericism, the third eye, and other magical nonsense.”  
  
Tesla shook his head.   
  
“Intuition has nothing to do with esotericism. This is such a fast assessment of incoming signals from outside that the brain doesn’t have time to track the logical chain from beginning to end, having only the result of this assessment. Visionary and magic, on the other hand, mislead people with tempting theses that have no basis in fact. I am considered a prophet of science," he grimaced “although this is far from the case. Seeing the future is not the same as analyzing its possible options based on available data. No one can look beyond the veil of tomorrow and know exactly what will happen.”   
  
The two men stopped at a pile of wind-and rain-worn boulders. Further on, the land gradually rose, and the plants became fewer and fewer. The stones seemed to choke the unpretentious flowers and grasses. On sunny days, large obtuse-faced lizards crawled out to warm themselves on the yellow sandstone. They, glittering scales, alarmingly squeezed into the nearest crack, as soon as somebody passed by. Sometimes one of them didn’t have enough space in the crevice: a stray reptile, having pushed its neighbors aside, would make its way away from a large and dangerous person and freeze, leaving a deceptively moving tail outside.   
  
Now the boulders were bare and gray. Only the reddish branches of astilba swayed mournfully in the wind.   
  
The tension appeared on Nikola’s face, but he turned away, closing his eyes, as if afraid that the interlocutor might see a flicker of unnecessary emotion. Czito became alert. The scientist was holding something back.   
  
“Intuition saved my life once” he whispered faintly, without turning. “After an incident like this, it would be unwise to ignore it’s warnings. I feel almost as anxiously today as I did in Central Park in those times, but I don’t know…”  
  
What exactly Tesla didn’t know, Czito couldn’t hear over the howling gust of wind. The old man looked curiously at the six-foot-tall figure, but said nothing. He delicately decided not to ask about what happened to the scientist in Central Park. He had the feeling that he had heard something that was not intended for his ears. It was awkward.   
  
“Mr. Tesla, we should go back, soon it will be so dark that you can’t see anything for a foot!”   
“Yes, I agree. Go to the city before it rains and the path is washed away. I want to watch the discharges alone today. When the thunder is over, I’ll go back to my hotel room.”   
  
They were silent all the way back. Nikola’s eyes went from painfully strained to distant again, far away from the dusty monotony landscape of the plateau. They parted at the nearest path: Czito went down to the town, which was lit up with friendly lights, and Tesla went to the wooden building of the laboratory with a mast on the roof.   
The storm was very close. Its ozone breath exhaled in the face. The first drops began to fall on the rough, bristly grass, and the first flash lit up the plateau. The scientist closed his eyes. It seemed to him that high up under the sky, there, among the electric discharges, he heard the most beautiful melody. A trill of the lightnings.   
  
It has little in common with human song. The melody of electricity can be heard at night during a thunderstorm, if you go out under the rain and hold your breath. At first you will think that there are no sounds other than thunder, wind, and water splashing, but then you will catch something that will make you freeze in amazement. Tesla was always impressed that in different parts of the world the storm sings differently. In his native Croatia it was the chime of thin glass tubes, here in Colorado Springs — low drone, like cockchafer humming, in France — a quiet, discordant, but beautiful in its own way sounds like a game of bizarre extraterrestrial instrument, vaguely similar to a glockenspiel.   
  
Opening his eyes, Tesla took another couple of steps and froze. He noticed that a stranger was standing next to his lab. The beginning downpour didn’t seem to bother him at all. He tilted his head back and was studying the sign above the hangar doors with interest: «Desine sperare qui hic intras».   
  
The alarm increased. A sickening sense of impending disaster filled his mind. What if this person is dangerous? The first discharges crackled in his hands, and before his eyes the body of the man standing in front of him lit up, flashing a coil of electrical wires. It was nervous system. It is not visible to the average person, only an electrokinetic on alert can see it as clearly as the veins on dried leaves can be seen if you look through them at the sun.   
  
With an effort of will, Tesla suppressed the insistent voice of self-preservation. It was unknown who this person is and what he needs. Perhaps he will not harm the inventor. The lightning crackled and went out again, and the electric glow in his eyes faded. Now what he saw was no different from what an ordinary person would have seen if they had been on the plateau at that time. But the scientist alerted, just in case.   
  
As Nikola drew near, the unexpected visitor turned and, undeterred by the inventor’s wary gaze, recited:   
  
«These words of gloomy color I beheld   
inscribed upon the summit of a gate;   
whence I: “Their meaning, Teacher, troubles me.”»   
  
He had a noticeable British accent.   
  
«And he to me, like one aware, replied:   
“All fearfulness must here be left behind;   
all forms of cowardice must here be dead.   
We’ve reached the place where, as I said to thee,   
thou ’lt see the sad folk who have lost the Good   
which is the object of the intellect.”» the scientist uttered the lines familiar from his student days, still staring intently at the stranger, and asked: “Who are you? This is a private area, outsiders are not allowed to be here.”   
  
The rapidly gathering dusk blurred the details and features of the intruder’s face, but the second lightning flash lit it up with a bright glow that cast almost no shadows.   
  
He was an elderly man, short and plump, with a flabby face and thinning gray hair. The bowler hat, three-piece suit, and watch chain hanging from the inside pocket of his jacket gave him the appearance of American bankers, of whom Tesla had already met many during his life in emigration. But the stranger had a different look from them, sharp and penetrating, glinting from under his furrowed brows. A dark polka dot bowtie and a cigar made him look oddly comical. A cigar was useless in the rain, but it didn’t seem to cause the visitor any inconvenience.   
  
Despite the fact that Tesla’s quick glance noted more and more details in the man’s appearance, the scientist’s attention constantly returned to the extinguished cigar. What a strange habit! The utter pointlessness of this detail puzzled and irritated him.   
  
“I’m sorry I didn’t introduce myself right away," the stranger said, raising his head and smiling good-naturedly. “I’m Winston Churchill.”  
“Nikola Tesla.”   
  
Churchill held out a dry, sinewy hand to shake. Tesla hesitated, looking at the pale, knobby fingers of the guest. Finally, the inventor said with irony:   
  
“I’d rather not shake hands, sir, if you haven’t acquired taste for static electricity shocks.”   
  
Churchill snorted like a locomotive leaving the station. It might have been more spectacular with a lighted cigar. He didn’t seem offended at all. The visitor calmly put his hand in his jacket pocket and became serious.   
  
“So what’d you want to talk to me about?” Nikola asked, looking down on him.   
“I’m afraid you’re in grave danger, Mr. Tesla.”   
  
A thunderclap shook the lab building, rattling the glass in the small, half-blind windows. From somewhere behind the black clouds came a quiet mournful weeping.   
  
_“_ _Is all of this happening to me?_ _”_


End file.
